Intercollegiate athletic programs must be viewed as part of an institutional culture of integrity that prioritizes the academic mission and ensures that student-athletes are first and foremost students in programs of higher education. The legitimization of collegiate sports wagering imposes risks that have the potential to undermine the integrity of both the institution and the sports contests, as well as to jeopardize the welfare of student-athletes and the intercollegiate athletics community, if the risks are not adequately addressed by colleges and universities.

To protect the integrity of college athletics contests, the NCAA has in place regulations that prohibit student-athletes from betting money on any sporting event (college, professional or otherwise) in which the NCAA conducts collegiate championships. Violations of this regulation may result in a student-athlete losing his or her athletics eligibility, which has clear negative repercussions for the individual, the team, and the school. The NCAA Board of Governors recently issued a resolution reinforcing the NCAA’s commitment to student-athlete well-being and protecting the integrity of college athletics from the influences of sports wagering.

The culture of integrity cannot be sustained by NCAA regulations alone. Higher education institutions should consider developing and strengthening policies and procedures, as well as training and education programs, designed to enhance institutional integrity. No school wants to be at the center of a cheating scandal, or to have its star athlete lose NCAA eligibility, or be found under the NCAA Rules to be lacking in institutional control.

They’re pharmacists and nurses, doctors and dentists, lawyers and laborers, retirees and millennials.

Some have master’s degrees. Others dropped out of high school.

They come from 38 states, with more than 1,000 calling Chicago home. Each one has a game of choice, be it blackjack or bingo, that has contributed to personal losses.

Those financial hits range from a few hundred dollars to more than $1 million.

And the 13,584 people registered as of this week in Illinois’ voluntary casino Self-Exclusion Program represent only a small fraction of the number of gambling addicts in the state, gaming opponents say.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” says Les Bernal, national director of the Stop Predatory Gambling advocacy group. “Most people who have a problem never come forward.”

Those compulsive gamblers who do try to ban themselves by signing up for the confidential list — which has been maintained by the Illinois Gaming Board since 2002 — aren’t barred from entering any of the state’s 10 existing casinos.

The Pennsylvania Lottery has more than 1,850 outlets with screens displaying virtual animated football and auto races. The odds of finding someone watching a bet play out on the simulated sports action is pretty low.

With a few exceptions, lottery licensees in the region report few customers are spending their time or money on the Xpress Sports games lottery officials introduced in August.

Xpress Football offers the chance to bet from $1 to $20 each on up to 16 possible outcomes — such as a touchdown run or a turnover — in a randomly generated offensive drive scenario.

In Xpress Car Racing, a player can win up to $250 per simulated race — the prize for correctly guessing the placement of three of the 12 competing cars.

While some companies acted swiftly to form partnerships in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic sports betting ruling, Penn National Gaming has taken a more thorough, judicious approach.

Nowhere was the strategy more evident than late last month when the company awarded 32 “skins” to four sportsbook operators as part of a historic market access agreement. The skin agreements enable the companies – DraftKings, PointsBet, theScore and The Stars Group – to (potentially) establish a presence across many of the 19 states where Penn National properties are located, while expanding their footprint to a host of untapped markets throughout the nation.

Despite handing out more than a dozen “first” skins under the agreement, the company has still retained its primary skins in the majority of the jurisdictions where it maintains a presence. To that end, Penn National Gaming (PNG) also announced a new partnership with Kambi Sports, which becomes the exclusive provider of sports wagering technology to PNG. “The skin deals which Penn National also announced are secondary and separate to our agreement with them,” Kambi’s Chief Commercial Officer Max Meltzer told Sports Handle.

An Arizona man accused of trying to launder more than $1 million in drug money by making it appear it came from cashed out winnings at Hollywood Casino Toledo pleaded not guilty Thursday to multiple felony charges.

Todd A. Brown, 40, is charged with 15 counts of concealment money laundering by reportedly conducting a financial transaction in which the proceeds involved some form of unlawful activity — specifically trafficking, according to United States Assistant Attorney Gene Crawford.

Mr. Brown was indicted last week in U.S. District Court in Toledo and the indictment was unsealed Wednesday, court records show. He appeared Thursday in federal court with his attorney, Stevin Groth, before Magistrate Judge James Knepp II.

Mr. Brown pleaded not guilty to all counts and could face up to 20 years for each charge. An initial sentencing guideline indicated Mr. Brown could face between 6½ and 8 years in prison, according to the federal prosecutor.

Ohioans who fashion themselves digital Bill Belichicks or Terry Franconas could have to draft their fantasy teams themselves rather than leaving it to their computers to do the work.

The Ohio Casino Control Commission’s draft rules for fantasy sports wagering in Ohio bans players from using “autodraft,” which allows a player to enter a contest and randomly select the players on their roster in some games.

That rule would apply only to contests in which participants put money on the line and the operator takes a cut, though. Office pools and leagues among friends in which each participant pays to enter and the entire pot is paid out, for example, would not be affected, said Jessica Franks, the commission’s spokeswoman.

“It removes that skill component,” Franks said of autodrafting. “It no longer meets with the requirement of the law.”

In March 2018, the Ohio General Assembly passed a bill requiring fantasy sports operators to obtain a state license, banning contests based on youth and college sports and leaving it to the Casino Control Commission to regulate the industry.

Not guilty. That’s the assertion of a man accused of “fast feeding” a serious amount of money into slot machines at the Hollywood Casino Toledo. Todd A. Brown is facing a federal court judge in Ohio after being indicted last week of attempted money laundering as a result of his gambling activity a couple of years ago at the casino. If the judge doesn’t agree with him or his defense, he could be looking at as many as 20 years in prison for each of the 15 counts for which he is charged.

The Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office in conjunction with the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office and the Ohio Casino Control Commission executed a search warrant at Lucky Jackpot Entertainment at 46323 Telegraph Road.

Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will said the case remains under investigation.

"We took some of the motherboards and devices that were part of the investigation from the Casino Control Commission, like the machines they played on,” Will said. "There's a distinction that's being made here.

"In Ohio, the law either says something is a skill-based amusement device or it is a gambling device or a slot machine, and that is what part of this investigation involves."

The Prosecutor’s Office is working with authorities to determine the extent of criminal activity, he said.

Progress made in technology introduced the concept of gamification in the industry of gambling. As a matter of fact, gamification is an innovative approach consisting of fusing slot machines and video games. The accessibility of online casinos on smartphones, tablets and computer aims at making gambling more fun, more creative, more easily going through the viewing of superheroes while playing on casino games.

What Gamification Seeks to Achieve

Before the opening of online casinos, gamblers could only carry out their betting activities through game machines in life casinos. Which means that any potential player simply needed to insert a coin into the slot machine and got to the outcome of his game. Nowadays gaming machines are offered in their virtual form by various game studios, betsoft’s slots are among the most known, the company and its competitors are constantly developing new products for the online casinos. These games inspired by all the spheres of life feature various elements such as displaying videos, being playable on smartphones and others.

Gamification is intended to make gambling an exciting adventure by adding more value to it through what is termed as missions. A player coming to an online casino has the choice between many games like slot machines, table games or video games. He can either bet by playing Black Jack, Poker or using the large panel of video games offered by each online casino. The games are constructed by big editors like Microgaming and others. Many topics are developed by the suppliers: stories, football, history and many others. In other words, gaming in this ease is based on predicting your chances of winning a given game by playing. If the player’s bet wins, that is his predictions have coincided with the exact move in the game, the gambler is said to have achieved his missions. Of course, after betting successfully, the player is awarded a prize, a point or gain promotion.

Last year has been a very good year for the gambling world in the United States. In the recent Gross Gambling Revenue (GGR), 2.3% surge has been noticed on a year by year basis. The foundation of the gambling world has been going strong since then. The casinos of Ohio and racinos enjoyed better July this year. The MGM Northfield Park of MGM Resorts has, however, took the trend downward with not so impressive figure in GGR.

The Jack Thistledown Racino and Jack Casino which are based in Cleveland contributed much in the GGR. Thistledown recorded a massive 15.3% increase reaching $12.3m as compared to last year July whereas Jack Casino reported 7.3% with $17.1m.

Hollywood Toledo and Hollywood Columbus also contributed to the growth for Ohio. As per the GGR reports, the increase is $500,000 for Toledo and $400,000 for Columbus in July.

The MGM Northfield remains the odd out and witnessed a 5.8% decrease in the GGR report as compared to year by year comparison. Since, last four months, Northfield has lost business significantly and a downward trend has been observed predominantly in the last 3 months of the four.

A UK-based gambling watchdog has found that loot boxes in FIFA and other video games do not constitute gambling, at least under current laws. Loot boxes in games have come under international scrutiny in the past few years due to concerns from both players and governments over whether they should be classified as gambling.

Members of Parliament in the UK have recently been leading an inquiry into "addictive technologies," especially video games and the way their publishers implement loot boxes. Many people inside and outside the video game industry believe that loot boxes are a predatory practice and can become a gateway to gambling addiction for younger players. Just last year, Belgium and the Netherlands became the first to ban loot boxes after determining that loot boxes qualify as gambling, and are therefore illegal in their territories.

Penn National Gaming announced on Wednesday five major partnerships that will help the casino operator claim a larger share of the rapidly growing US regulated sports betting market.

Through its wholly owned subsidiary Penn Interactive Ventures, Penn National will manage the newly penned multi-year, multi-state agreements that all involve the provision of online sports betting and online gaming services.

In a press release issued Wednesday, Penn National announced that it has entered into agreements with sports betting operators DraftKings, PointsBet, theScore, and The Stars Group. Penn Interactive Ventures will manage the newly established relationships.

In addition to joining forces with the major operators, Penn National also announced that it has inked an agreement with sports betting technology provider Kambi Group, under the terms of which the latter would power the company’s primary sports gambling and online gaming ventures.

EA and microtransactions are back in the spotlight again with a report emerging from BBC. This is the story of how the company’s aggressive monetization strategies emptied out a family’s bank account. It seems as if the moment EA waft their fart away from themselves, somebody is there to nudge it back at them…

This time, the focus is on FIFA and their Ultimate Team. According to Intelligent Economist, the game nets the company $650 million dollars and above. To understand that better, FIFA is responsible for around 40% of the company’s revenue.

Those figures make it easy to understand why the franchise is such a valuable thing to EA. When one game is propping up half of your revenue, you’re going to lean on it pretty heavily. The problem is that microtransactions have been netting these AAA companies more money than the sales of the actual game have been. And, as we all know, greed gives way to tyranny.

After some time following these stories and seeing the community’s reaction to the reports, I must ask the question: are microtransactions making FIFA unsafe for children?

Subsidiary IGT Global Solutions will continue to provide a range of instant ticket services to the Ohio Lottery through to 30 June 2021, including game planning and marketing, research and analytics, graphics support, and production and printing.

“IGT has worked closely with the Ohio Lottery to launch new games and deliver high-quality, innovative instant tickets to its players since 2015,” said Jay Gendron, IGT chief operating officer, Lottery. “IGT is pleased to continue our partnership with the Ohio Lottery and looks forward to enhancing its instant ticket portfolio with compelling new game concepts and world-class service over the next two years.”

IGT has served as a print vendor to the Ohio Lottery since 2015, launching successful tickets such as The Three Stooges, Joker’s Wild, Money Bags Multiplier, and most recently the $5 Wheel of Fortune ticket.

Shares in International Game Technology plc (NYQ:IGT) closed in New York Thursday down 0.52 per cent at $13.34 per share, having set a new 52-week low of $12.11 per share earlier in the day.

Sen. John Eklund, a lawyer for nearly 40 years, is tired of hearing arguments that the Ohio Casino Control Commission (CCC) could not legally regulate sports wagering but the Ohio Lottery Commission (OLC) could.

That is the narrative being pushed by House lawmakers led by Rep. Dave Greenspan. Eklund admits that it has played a part in S 111 not having any momentum in the first half of the Ohio legislative session. It hasn’t even been assigned to a committee.

Eklund said:

“I think part of the reason it has been slow to move on the Senate side has been because of some lingering and, in my opinion, unjustified concerns over the extent of which the Ohio Constitution would permit the Casino Commission to regulate this activity.

“I have argued that point publicly, privately and six ways to Sunday. I’m not just talking through my hat. I’ve researched it, read cases, and I certainly know enough about the constitution of Ohio.”

The argument against the CCC overseeing OH sports betting revolves around the old argument about whether wagering on sports is a casino game. Greenspan has an opinion from the Legislative Service Commission that indicates, under the Ohio Constitution, it is not.

“Nothing in the Ohio Constitution says the Casino Control Commission may not regulate sports gaming,” Eklund said. “Nothing. If they want to take that tact, which I think is wrongheaded, I could make the equally wrongheaded argument that the Constitution doesn’t authorize the Lottery Commission to regulate sports gaming. A lot of this is trying to interpret words to get a particular result.”

Beating out other pros and famous streamers, Kyle 'Bugha' Giersdorf, 16, made a name for himself by dominating from the first round and ultimately taking home the $3 million grand prize for individual players. That's the largest-ever payout for a single player in an esports tournament.

After securing a victory in the first round and nine in-game kills, Giersdorf went on to rack up dozens of in-game kills each round, until he ended up with 59 points — a huge lead over the second-place winner.

"Words can't really explain it. I'm so happy," Giersdorf said. "Everything I've done in the grind has all paid off and it's just insane."

He said that in the last round, after finding a safe spot to scope out enemies and collecting a lot of loot to use as ammunition, his championship win "was pretty much sealed from there." After celebrating his win, he turned around to hug his family members who had traveled from his hometown in Pennsylvania to see him play.

Conventional casino games ask players to place bets with fiat currency. It might make you think what is this fuss all about? When you are ready to gamble, you should also be ready to win or lose. Whether you use cryptocurrency or fiduciary currency, what difference does it make? But, players have to say differently.

There are several advantages of using digital currencies such as Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin over Euros. British Pounds, US Dollars, Japanese Yen, South African Rands, and the other currencies.

Since 2012, Bitcoin gambling seems to have gained momentum. In fact, the world of online gambling is filled with an extensive range of popular Bitcoin casinos. However, the question that arises is why all the ballyhoo about Bitcoin Indian casino? Does switching over to crypto from fiat offer such significant benefits? Our exposure is taking us to cyberspace where security, privacy, anonymity, transaction speed, and also personalized Bitcoin gaming titles are made readily available to the players.